Local witnesses said they heard a loud blast at around 4.30am and saw thick smoke coming from the plant and flames rising high into the air.

A nearby villager wrote on Sina Weibo that the blast had shattered window panes in her home and damaged a wall.

The 13.8 billion yuan project, which produces a chemical commonly known as PX that is essential in the manufacture of polyester, launched a trial production in June. The plant has an annual capacity of 800,000 tonnes. [Source]

Details are sketchy about blast at the Tenglong Aromatic PX (Zhangzhou) Ltd. According to an official government statement and unofficial accounts on the Internet, a pipeline blew up but no one was injured.

For a plant so steeped in history, the explosion is likely to resonate further than the glass the government said shattered in a nearby village.

The incident follows increased reassurance in China’s state-run media that it is safe to produce the chemical made at the plant, a plastics input called paraxylene, or PX. On the same day as the blast, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece newspaper, the People’s Daily, quoted an oil an industry executive as saying, “For large projects like PX, they have been running for decades without big work safety accidents anywhere.” [Source]

PX plants around the country have become a hot-button issue, especially among China’s growing middle class.

“The government does not have the sincerity to handle such things properly. They should draw a lesson from this accident in Zhangzhou,” said Li Jiarui, a food researcher who protested against a PX factory in Kunming city in southwest Yunnan in May. [Source]